Georgia Today: Kemp announces infrastructure investment; Sports betting; Georgia Writer of the Year

Orlando Montoya: Hello and welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Wednesday, Jan. 10. I'm Orlando Montoya. Coming up on today's episode: Gov. Brian Kemp announces a big investment in state infrastructure, new efforts to legalize sports betting in Georgia, and a conversation with the attorney turned author who has received three Georgia Writer of the Year recognitions. These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.

Story 1:

Orlando Montoya: A state judge once again has delayed the trial for the first defendant indicted in protests against the Atlanta Public Safety Training Facility. Opening arguments had been expected to begin today in the case of 19-year-old Ayla King of Massachusetts. But instead, defense attorneys argued that a holiday break violated her right to a speedy trial. The judge rejected the argument, but delayed the case anyway because the defense is appealing that decision. King is the first of 61 defendants to stand trial. State prosecutors have characterized the group as, quote, "militant anarchists" who have committed violence and vandalism against authorities and contractors linked to the training facility. Demonstrators and civil rights groups have condemned the indictments as a heavy-handed effort to try to silence a movement that has galvanized environmentalists and anti-police protesters across the country.

Story 2:

Orlando Montoya: State lawmakers are renewing a push to legalize sports betting in Georgia. GPB's Sarah Kallis has more.

Sarah Kallis: The Senate Committee on Regulated Industries passed Senate Bill 172. It would allow sports betting in Georgia, with the help of a constitutional amendment, and set up a governing body for the industry. Sen. Bill Cowsert, the bill's sponsor, is hopeful that this is the year sports betting passes.

Bill Cowsert: There seems to be a good, um, a lot of push for this, uh, from some of our constituents. And I just think it may be time and I certainly wanted us to address the issue this year. Let's decide it once and for all and move on.

Sarah Kallis: The bill does not legalize sports betting without a companion constitutional amendment requiring a yes vote from two-thirds of the legislature and approval from Georgia voters. For GPB news, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state Capitol.

Story 3:

Orlando Montoya: Gov. Brian Kemp says he wants to spend an additional $1.8 billion on infrastructure. Kemp made his proposals at a gathering of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce this morning. In remarks that could preview his state of the state address tomorrow, Kemp also said he wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to expand training for dentists and physicians. The plans show how Georgia's $11 billion in surplus is giving the governor room to spend big, even as state revenues slow down. GPB will broadcast the State of the State address live tomorrow at 11 a.m. on the radio and at GPB.org.

Credit: Stephen Fowler / GPB News

Story 4:

Orlando Montoya: Georgia congresswoman Lucy McBath has a challenger in the Democratic primary in May. Cobb County Commissioner Jerica Richardson confirmed yesterday that she'll challenge McBath in a new congressional district west of Atlanta. Richardson previously said she would run for Congress, but her decision had been uncertain after Georgia state lawmakers radically reconfigured McBath's current district. Her campaign creates an intraparty fight featuring an incumbent long targeted by Republicans. But Richardson says there is no incumbent in the district, since most of its constituents will be voting for a different representative than the one they have now.

Story 5:

Orlando Montoya: Hundreds of thousands of Georgians could be at risk of losing their home internet access if Congress doesn't extend a federal subsidy. GPB's Benjamin Payne reports.

Benjamin Payne: About 700,000 low-income households in Georgia receive financial assistance through the Affordable Connectivity Program. That's roughly 1 in 6 households in the state getting $30 a month to pay for home internet. But White House officials this week warned that the subsidies will come to an end after April unless Congress extends the program. Stephen Benjamin is an adviser to President Biden and wants to see that happen.

Stephen Benjamin: ACP doesn't just get families online for the first time, it helps them stay online. That kind of stability is critical for our nation's students who need a reliable connection to do their homework, for seniors on a fixed income, and for entrepreneurs trying to start a business from home.

Benjamin Payne: Rural Southwest Georgia has the state's highest participation in the internet subsidy. There, in the 2nd Congressional District, 1 in 3 households receives assistance. For GPB News, I'm Benjamin Payne.

Story 6:

Orlando Montoya: A North Atlantic right whale calf spotted off the coast of South Carolina has been seriously injured and is likely to die after being struck by an oceangoing vessel. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released details about the injury today. The agency says the calf and the calf's mother were seen in December off Amelia Island, Florida, meaning they traveled off Georgia's coast. It's unknown where the calf was struck. There are only about 630 whales left in the highly endangered species. This was the 71st dead or seriously injured North Atlantic right whale spotted since 2017. Today's news came a day after NOAA fisheries announced a $10 million project to develop new technologies to protect the species. The Biden administration has proposed, but not enacted, new vessel speed limit rules to protect the whales from strikes. Maritime interests have said such limits would threaten their businesses.

Credit: Adobe Stock Image

Story 7:

Orlando Montoya: Former Southeast Georgia attorney Kathy Bradley has been writing about her surroundings for the past 28 years. She's lived on the same farm in Bulloch County for half a century. Her columns, appearing every two weeks in the Statesboro Herald, usually revolve around the most ordinary of things. Like her bucolic settings, family gatherings, and even the weather. But her essays are far from ordinary. They emphasize curiosity and metaphor with an almost poetic sense of word economy. She's won three Georgia Writer of the Year awards, most recently last year for her essay collection Sifting Artifacts. I spoke with her last month and asked her how she got her start in writing.

Kathy Bradley: I told a funny what I thought was a funny story to a friend of mine about the Georgia Legislature, and, um, she thought it was hilarious. And a couple of weeks later, we were at a lunch of a local civic group, and the editor of the local paper was there, and my friend said, "oh, tell Larry that story. That's hilarious." And so I told him the story and he said, "would you write that down for me so I can publish it in the newspaper?" I said, "sure." So I wrote it down, and a couple of weeks later, something else came to my mind that I wanted to say. So I wrote it down and sent it to him and said, you know, "if you got room for this, that's fine. If not, don't worry about it." He called me later and said, "what would it take to get you to do this on a regular basis?" And I thought "not much," but I didn't tell him that. I just said, "well, let me think about it." So I thought about it and I got back in touch with him, and I started writing every other week. And that's how it started.

Orlando Montoya: Now you've been doing it every 14 days since 1996. Have you ever taken a break?

Kathy Bradley: I took about a two-year break in 2004. I was going through some personal difficulties and, um, like I said, about two years later, I realized that not only did I miss doing it, but there was something missing for me in not doing it. And I got back in touch with the paper and said, "would you take me back?" And they said, "how quick can you start writing again?"

Orlando Montoya: What would you describe as as being "missing?" In other words, what's the necessary thing about writing for you?

Kathy Bradley: It allows me an opportunity to process what is going on around me, not just in my particular life, but in the, um, the community around me, the world around me. You know what I'm experiencing. Um, words have always been my preferred manner of not just communication, but of understanding things. You know, I operate with a great deal of curiosity. And when something comes to my mind and I need to know the answer to it, I need to be able to put it into words.

Orlando Montoya: I love the book. I got Sifting Artifacts, and I've highlighted a few lines. And I know as a writer, you know, to go back, you know, years ago and pick out a few lines from one essay is, you know, asking danger, but that the first essay you have in which you say there's a single characteristic about every writer, they find curiosity and metaphor in everyday experiences and that comes across in your writing. I have to say, um, you write about everyday experiences, but you always seem to have a lesson or something that you've learned along the way. My question for you is, how long does it take you to find that curiosity or metaphor?

Kathy Bradley: It depends. Usually what happens is I spend an awful lot of time outside, and usually I will be outside, uh, either taking a walk or just sitting on the porch or, you know, something. And I will notice a particular object or the movement of a leaf, or the way a bird lands somewhere. And it — it sort of highlights itself and I become captured by it, quite frankly. And I stare at it, listen to it long enough that I begin to see the metaphor.

Orlando Montoya: I didn't put your book through a word analyzer, but I think if you did put the words through the analyzer and it would tell you which ones are greater than normal used, I think you would find "fence row" there.

Kathy Bradley (Laughing): Probably.

Orlando Montoya: You got a lot of fence rows and pennyroyal and sawtooth oaks. It's a lot of those words that we people who don't grow up in that environment don't know. Are you aware of these words, uh, and how unique you are in the ability to use them intelligently?

Kathy Bradley: I will say yes and no. Um, I realize from having conversations with people like you that I use words that are unfamiliar to them, but very familiar to me. But at the same time, when I'm writing, I try not to be conscious of it because I want what I'm writing to sound like me: conversational. And those are the words I use in conversation. Uh, and I hope I've written well enough that people can figure out what a fence row is if they've never seen that word or, uh, they, they can figure out what a sawtooth oak looks like.

Orlando Montoya: What I love about talking with you is that we are both very curious people. We both find metaphor. We're both, you know, writers at our heart. But I — I can't do what you do. Perhaps it's my background as a journalist, but I — I find it's easier to write about other people than myself or even nature. So are we just on opposite sides of a writerly spectrum, or what accounts for that difference?

Kathy Bradley: Possibly. But — but I really do think that the, um, the answer for me — and again, it couldn't be for anybody else — those two years when I didn't write for the newspaper — and I indicated I'd gone through some personal difficulties — when I came through that, I had a new outlook on what it meant to be human and what it meant to have one precious life. And, um, there wasn't any reason for me to be afraid to reveal how I thought or the strangeness of my imaginings anymore.

Orlando Montoya: Well, you don't seem to me like a person who runs out of topics.

Kathy Bradley: I try not.

Orlando Montoya: You never run out of topics. How do you keep track of them all? Do you have, like, a list of, like, what I want to write about coming up?

Kathy Bradley: Not really. I just try to be very aware of this moment. Someone asked me not long ago about the fact that my pieces are dated, you know? And why did I do that? I had to stop and think about it, because I hadn't really given it a whole lot of specific thought. But the idea that, um, life — life is very, um — you know, "finite" is such a ridiculous word to use, but but everything about it is. Um, you know, um, I'm never going to be sitting here talking to you ever again. Not like this. And one of the things that I try to do in my writing is to encourage people to understand that a little better than sometimes we do when we're, you know, running from jobs to children's ballet lessons to back to the house. You know, we we get too busy. And I want people to take a moment and realize this is the only time you're ever going to have this moment. So to get back to your question: No, I don't run out of things because every day, every moment is different.

Orlando Montoya: That's Kathy Bradley, a columnist for the Statesboro Herald. Her most recent book is called Sifting Artifacts. You can find it and her columns at KathyABradley.com. She's also the subject of the most recent episode of the GPB podcast Narrative Edge. If you haven't heard of Narrative Edge, it's all about books with Georgia connections, and it's hosted by me and my All Things Considered co-host here on GPB, Peter Biello. A new episode comes out every two weeks. Find it at GPB.org/NarrativeEdge or wherever you get your podcasts.

Story 8:

Orlando Montoya: Finally, the Atlanta Braves Double-A Southern League team is moving from Pearl, Miss., to Columbus, Ga. The Mississippi Braves announced the move yesterday. Diamond Baseball Holdings owns the team and two other Georgia-based Braves minor league teams: the Triple-A Gwinnett Stripers and the High-A team in Rome, which recently changed its name from the Braves to the Emperors. The announcement came after Columbus city councilors voted to spend up to $50 million in bonds to upgrade the city's 1920 stadium, Golden Park, to minor league standards. The park was the home to the Columbus Astros and Columbus Mudcats in the Southern League from 1969 to 1990, the last time Columbus had a minor league team. Games will begin with the 2025 season.

And that's it for today's edition of Georgia Today. We have many of the stories that you hear on this podcast on our GPB news website. A lot of the stories go into greater detail than we do here in the podcast as well. So check out gpb.org/news anytime to get all the latest from GPB news. Hit subscribe on this podcast if you haven't yet done so. That will help you to keep us current in your feed. And if you have anything to say to us, good, bad or otherwise, send us a comment. Feedback is welcome at GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. I'm Orlando Montoya, filling in for Peter Biello this week. I'll talk to you again tomorrow.

---

For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news